Infinera Corp of Sunnyvale, CA, USA, a vertically integrated manufacturer of digital optical network systems incorporating its own indium phosphide-based photonic integrated circuits (PICs), says that Facebook has deployed its Intelligent Transport Network to light the world's longest terrestrial optical network route, capable of delivering up to 8 terabits per second (Tb/s) of data transmission capacity (enough to stream over 1 million high-definition videos at the same time). The new route spans 3998km and is deployed without any regeneration.
Facebook's European terrestrial network stretches from its data-center in Lulea, Sweden across major hubs throughout Europe. The firm deployed the Infinera portfolio of products (which includes the DTN-X platform) to connect these hubs, harnessing Infinera's FlexCoherent solution to deliver terabits of capacity on a single fiber across the continent.
Facebook currently delivers to its European network 100Gb/s coherent transmission via 500Gb/s super-channels, featuring a forward-scale design to support 1.2Tb/s super-channels in the future. The high-capacity super-channels are enabled by 500Gb/s PICs developed and fabricated by Infinera (the only supplier providing 500Gb/s of transmission capacity from a single line-card). PICs enable the DTN-X platform to integrate wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) super-channel transmission with up to 12Tb/s of non-blocking optical transport network switching, providing seamless scaling as traffic requirements grow in the future. The DTN-X also features SDN-ready application programming interfaces that enable network programmability and automation of network operations to reduce both operational cost and service delivery times while facilitating new services.
"The Infinera Intelligent Transport Network makes it easy for us to rapidly grow network capacity while keeping operations simple," comments Niclas Comstedt, Facebook's director of network engineering. "Once the equipment is in place we are able to turn up as many terabits as we need," he adds.
"Content providers such as Facebook are adding long-haul capacity at a rapid pace," notes market research firm TeleGeography's research director Alan Mauldin. "According to our research, private network capacity in Europe has increased more than 8-fold between 2010 and 2014," he adds.
"I've worked closely with service providers around the world to test and deploy ultra-long-haul optical transport systems for over a decade," says Infinera fellow Steve Grubb. "The route we are announcing with Facebook is delivering multi-terabit capacity today, and I believe this is the world's longest 8Tb/s-capable route in production," he adds.
"Facebook's deployment of the Infinera Intelligent Transport Network underscores the value Infinera brings to Internet content providers and data-center operators around the world," says Infinera's CEO Tom Fallon. "Facebook is a classic example of how leading Internet content providers are building global networks that interconnect their data-centers to accelerate the delivery of high-bandwidth, feature-rich services worldwide."
